Know who's slipping away while they're still paying.
Joins, first-month visits, quiet members, failed payments, classes and PT on one member file. Built for independent gyms, boutique studios and small groups of clubs.
- First 30 days
- Quiet members
- Failed payments
- Classes and PT
No commitment. We start with last month's joins and cancellations, and mark where a member could have been kept.
2 new members haven't made a first visit- average annual member retention across 175 operators. One member in three leaves every year.
66.4%
average annual member retention across 175 operators. One member in three leaves every year.
HFA 2025 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report (2024 data)
- is how long monthly members kept paying after their last visit before they cancelled. That's $187 each.
2.31 months
is how long monthly members kept paying after their last visit before they cancelled. That's $187 each.
DellaVigna & Malmendier, American Economic Review, 2006
- of new members dropped out before their third month in a study of 5,240 gym joiners.
63%
of new members dropped out before their third month in a study of 5,240 gym joiners.
Sperandei, Vieira & Reis, Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 2016
A membership, step by step
From the trial class to the win-back offer
Eight hand-offs between the desk, the coaches and the owner. Each one is a place where a member, or a month's dues, slips away.
01
Lead and trial
Where it breaks: The trial is booked in an Instagram DM. Nobody follows up after the class.
What changes: Lead, source and trial sit on one record, with a follow-up due in 48 hours.
02
Join
Where it breaks: Plan, Direct Debit and the access fob are set up in three different tools.
What changes: One join creates the plan, the mandate, the access and the start date.
03
First 30 days
Where it breaks: The welcome email goes out and the member is left to find their routine.
What changes: Every new member has a named coach and a visit count since day one.
04
Visits
Where it breaks: Check-ins are logged and never read, member by member.
What changes: Last visit and weekly pattern sit on every member file.
05
Classes and PT
Where it breaks: The timetable is in one app and the PT diary is in the trainer's phone.
What changes: Bookings, no-shows, PT packages and trainer hours in one place.
06
Billing
Where it breaks: A failed Direct Debit turns up at month end, after the member's trained all month.
What changes: Failures land the day after the run, with a retry and a link to update details.
07
Freeze or cancel
Where it breaks: A freeze is a note in a notebook. The cancel reason isn't recorded at all.
What changes: Freezes have an end date. Cancels have a reason, a last visit and an offer.
08
Win-back
Where it breaks: Ex-members vanish into an export nobody opens.
What changes: A win-back list at 30, 90 and 180 days, sorted by why they left.
The problems
Where an independent gym loses money
UK gyms have a record 12.2 million members. Signing them up isn't the hard part. Keeping them, and collecting every month, is.
39.2%
Payroll weighs more on a single site
Single-site operators spend more of every pound on staff than multi-site groups at 35.5%. Desk hours spent retyping members are hours you're paying for.
HFA 2026 Global Report, operator survey of 244 companies
10%
Some joiners never walk in
One in ten online joiners never enters the club. If nobody's watching the first week, nobody notices until they cancel.
Hillsdon & Bedford, 3 million+ member records, 26 countries
39%
Off-peak classes run near empty
That's the share of 1pm to 4pm studio classes with fewer than five people in the room. The instructor costs the same either way.
Mariana Tek booking-platform data, 2026 (vendor data)
8.4%
PT is the top add-on, and lives in a notebook
That's the share of revenue leading clubs earn from PT, their top add-on. In most independents it's tracked in the trainer's diary, not next to the dues.
IHRSA Profiles of Success, median share of total revenue
A failed payment nobody chases
A member who trains all month on a bounced Direct Debit isn't revenue. The failure rate depends on how members pay. The loss comes from not following up.
GoCardless: Direct Debit is 74% of UK recurring payments
£48.45
Squeezed by the low-cost chains
That's the average private-sector membership. Low-cost clubs now average over £25. An independent wins on knowing its members by name and by habit.
LeisureDB State of the UK Fitness Industry Report, 2025
What's coming
What changes in 2026–2027
New rules on how members join, cancel and get reminded, with dates already set.
19 Jun 2026
A withdrawal button for EU online joins
Memberships sold online in the EU must offer a clearly labelled button to withdraw within the 14-day period, confirmed on a durable medium. The join flow and the member file both need to record it.
Directive (EU) 2023/2673, Art. 2
1 Jan 2027
UK subscription rules for memberships
Rolling memberships taken out from this date need reminder notices every six months, notice before an intro price ends, a cooling-off period and an easy way to cancel. Missing a notice gives the member a right to cancel, so reminders must be sent and logged automatically.
DBT draft subscription contracts guidance, Oct 2026
1 Jan 2027
Unfair dismissal protection after six months
Desk staff and employed coaches gain protection after six months instead of two years. Start dates, probation reviews and notes belong in the staff record, not the owner's inbox.
GOV.UK: Employment Rights Act 2025 timeline
April 2027
National Living Wage rises to £13.21
A 3.9% rise, accepted in full by the government. With payroll the biggest cost, desk and class rotas need re-costing at the new rate before April.
GOV.UK: LPC recommendations 2027
The solution
One member file, from the trial to the win-back
Six parts that work together. Each one starts where a real club loses a member or a month's dues.
One file per member
Plan, payments, visits and bookings in one place.
Each member has their plan, fee, mandate, access, visits, classes and PT on one record. Trials and leads sit on the same list, so a trial becomes a member without being retyped.
- Plan, price and Direct Debit mandate on the member
- Visits, class bookings and PT sessions together
- Trials who came but didn't join, ready to follow up
Why it matters: In LeisureDB's count, PureGym, The Gym Group and JD Gyms own 94% of the UK's low-cost clubs. They win on price. You win on knowing each member.
The first 30 days
See who joined and has barely come in.
Every member under 30 days shows visits so far and days since the last one. No first visit by day 7, or under four visits by day 21, puts them on the coach's call list.
- Visits since the join date, member by member
- A named coach for every new member
- Book the next session from the call
Why it matters: Hillsdon and Bedford found members who wait more than two weeks for their first visit are more likely to quit. Members who made a friend at the gym in the last three months were 40% less likely to cancel.
Quiet members, still paying
The warning is the empty week, not the cancel email.
When check-ins stop, the member lands on a list with their last visit, tenure and plan. The manager calls, offers a PT check-in or a freeze, and logs what happened.
- Paying members with no visit for 14, 21 or 30 days
- Sorted by tenure and plan value
- Call outcome logged, and the next visit tracked
Why it matters: The same AER study found 20% of monthly members kept paying for at least four months after their last visit. Hillsdon and Bedford found online joiners who came in once kept paying for about five months.
Failed payments the next morning
A membership that didn't collect isn't revenue.
Failures arrive from your payment provider the day after the run. The member gets a retry and a secure link to update their details. The desk sees a private flag at check-in, never on a public screen.
- Failures listed the day after collection
- Automatic retry and an update-details link
- Recovered and open totals every week
Why it matters: GoCardless puts failures on gym Direct Debit at about 0.5% of collections, and a bad month runs higher. The rate is small. The loss comes from failures nobody chases.
Classes and personal training
Trainer hours next to what they earn.
The timetable, waitlists and the PT book sit with the dues. You see which slots fill, which run half empty, and how many hours each trainer sold.
- Fill rate by class slot over eight weeks
- Waitlists that promote automatically
- PT hours booked against hours available
Why it matters: Les Mills and DataHub data from 601 facilities shows members doing group classes twice a week stayed 31.9 months on average, against 23.4 months for those who never took one (vendor data).
What the month earned
Dues, PT and classes, not one blended total.
The owner sees dues apart from PT and classes, and payroll as a share of revenue. Net members, the quiet list and recovered payments sit on the same page.
- Dues, PT and classes split out
- Payroll as a share of revenue, every month
- Joins, cancels and freezes side by side
Why it matters: In the HFA 2026 Global Report, the most profitable half of operators spent 32.4% of revenue on payroll against 36.4% across all respondents. Their median EBITDA was 31.0%, against 22.1% overall.
What we build
A desk app for the club, a phone app for coaches, a portal for members
We design and build the system around your club. The desk and the owner work in the browser, coaches and PTs work on a phone, members book and pay in their own app, and it all lands on one member file.
Members to call today
Thu 5 Nov 2026 · 612 paying members
Paying members
612
£27,540 dues a month
New, 30 days
14
5 under 4 visits
Quiet 21+ days
23
£1,035 a month at risk
Payments open
£135
3 of 7 from Mon 2 Nov
Call list
| Member | Plan | Joined | Last visit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ella R. | Standard £45 | 26 Oct | — | No first visit |
| Marcus T. | Off-peak £32 | 29 Oct | — | No first visit |
| Hana K. | Unlimited £59 | 19 Oct | 30 Oct | 2 visits |
| Grace O. | Standard £45 | Aug 2026 | 2 Oct | Quiet 34 days |
| Amira S. | Standard £45 | Mar 2025 | 4 Nov | Payment open |
Front-desk web app
Members, joins, freezes, cancels and the day's call lists for the desk and the manager.
Coach and PT app
Class registers, PT diaries, session notes and new-member calls on a phone on the gym floor.
Member app or portal
Join online, book classes and PT, freeze and update payment details without calling the desk.
Payments and Direct Debit
Collections, failed payments and retries connected to the payment provider you choose.
Access and check-in
Fobs, PINs or app QR codes connected to your door or turnstile, so every visit lands on the member.
Owner reports
Dues, PT, classes, payroll share, joins and cancels every month, without exporting to a spreadsheet.
What changes
From month-end surprises to a daily call list
- Trials booked in DMs and forgottenEvery trial followed up within 48 hours
- New members left to find a routineA named coach and a visit count from day one
- Quiet members found at cancellationA quiet list while they're still paying
- Failed payments found at month endFailures and retries the next morning
- PT tracked in the trainer's diaryPT hours and revenue next to the dues
- One blended revenue numberDues, PT, classes and payroll share apart
Getting started
How we start
You don't have to replace your gym software on day one.
- 1
30-minute call
You walk us through last month, from new joins and trials to cancels and failed payments.
- 2
We map the leaks
Where visits, payments and cancellations stop matching the member list.
- 3
Pilot one loop
Usually the first 30 days or the quiet list, on top of the system you already run.
- 4
Roll out
Failed payments, classes, PT and owner reports follow once the first loop is trusted.
Pilot programme
Start with one club and one real month
An independent gym, a boutique studio or a small group of clubs. We set up the first-30-days board or the quiet list in one club, then compare a month of real members with the month before.
- Set-up around how your desk and coaches already work
- Training for the desk, coaches and PTs
- A side-by-side review of new-member visits and cancels
FAQ
Questions gym owners ask
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly.
No. We can start with one loop, like the first 30 days or the quiet list, on top of what you run today. We check what your current system can export or connect on the first call.
We connect to the payment provider and access system you already use where they allow it. Tell us which ones on the first call and we'll confirm what's possible before any work starts.
Yes. Class registers, PT diaries and new-member calls are built for a phone on the gym floor, not the office computer.
Health questionnaires are special-category data under UK and EU GDPR. Only the roles that need them can see them, and member lists never appear on public or desk-facing screens.
Yes. We agree on the first call what moves over: members, plans, mandates, visit history and PT packages. Nothing is switched until the numbers match.
You do. Members, visits, payments and history stay yours.
Let's look at last month's joins and cancels.
30 minutes, no pitch deck. We follow one new member from the trial to their first month and mark where a quiet week or a failed payment was missed.
Book a 30-minute callSources and research notesShowHide
Figures come from the Health & Fitness Association, ukactive, LeisureDB, peer-reviewed studies and published company and vendor data, labelled where it's vendor data. They describe the industry, not BrandableCode client results. Product screens show demo data for a fictional club.
- HFA 2025 Fitness Industry Benchmarking Report
- 2026 HFA Global Report (via Health Club Management)
- DellaVigna & Malmendier, Paying Not to Go to the Gym (AER, 2006)
- Sperandei, Vieira & Reis, J Sci Med Sport (2016)
- Hillsdon & Bedford, Health Club Handbook 2017
- ukactive UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2026
- LeisureDB State of the UK Fitness Industry Report 2025
- Mariana Tek data via Athletech News (vendor data)
- IHRSA Profiles of Success: personal training revenue
- Les Mills / DataHub group exercise retention (vendor data)
- GoCardless: gym Direct Debit failures
- GoCardless: Direct Debit share of UK recurring payments
- Directive (EU) 2023/2673 (withdrawal function), EUR-Lex
- DBT: draft guidance on consumer subscription contracts, Oct 2026
- GOV.UK: Employment Rights Act 2025 timeline update
- GOV.UK: National Living Wage £13.21 from April 2027
Photos: Sergio Kian, Vitaly Gariev, Geert Pieters, Salman Sidheek, Samuel Girven on Unsplash. Product screens show demo data.